


the still and silent sea

by phaseblast



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: (typical for Firefly in any case), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Firefly Verse, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Slow Build, Space Cowboys - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-08
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-05-25 00:58:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6173767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phaseblast/pseuds/phaseblast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack left home to bring his little sister back, no matter what. If that means he has to join a crew of misfit outlaws and live off the barest scraps the 'verse has to offer, then that's fine. And if it means putting himself on the radar of the Alliance and their favourite General — well. He could do without that much. But he never seems to have a choice in these things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. ACT I, BEGINNING

**Author's Note:**

> so uh, this is a thing. hello. first things first, i should say that even though this is a Firefly-verse AU, it's just using the universe rather than copying canon direct, and i'm going to try to make sure that it's still accessible for people who aren't canon familiar! so if you just want space cowboy shenanigans, hopefully there's no barrier, lmk if that isn't the case.
> 
> secondly, there's going to be bits and pieces of Mandarin Chinese used throughout dialogue, since that's a feature of the Firefly universe. i don't speak any Chinese myself, so chances are this won't be accurate since it's coming from google-fu, and the show's in-universe Chinese isn't often accurate either; still, don't hesitate to correct me! **all Mandarin dialogue will have hovertext translations** , so you can just mouse over the words instead of having to scroll to the bottom.
> 
> the title is from an Old Norse proverb out of Hávamál: _It is the still and silent sea that drowns a man._

The Core is a safe place to be in the 'verse. Of course it's safe; it’s home to the wealthy elite and the most staunch Alliance supporters, and it gets the benefit of favouritism on every account, from trade to technology to security. Everyone who chooses to live on a planet on the Inner Rim knows what choice they’re making. They give up their privacy and play loyal to the Alliance, and in return, the Alliance will be there to protect them from anything that might be deemed a threat. You live on a Core planet and you’ve got total protection from just about everything —  _aside_ from the Alliance itself, should it ever feel the need to come knocking down your door. It's a tight system they have established on the Inner Rim.

That level of security is a serious problem for any band of smugglers, rogues, and scoundrels, which is exactly why Aster tried to talk North out of taking this job in the first place. It might be safe for the bastards that _live_ here on Ariel, but it’s downright dangerous for the two of them.

“Bah,” North brushes him off for the third time of the evening, “you are worrying for nothing, Bunnymund! We are fine. Alliance soldiers would not see a man steal bao from their plates.”

And, well — it’s true that North’s confidence hasn’t been proven wrong yet. The break-in has gone smooth enough thus far: the security patrols are on schedule, the stolen keycard got them through the back door as promised, and the guards were easily distracted by a radio call to elsewhere. Not a single delay until _this_ one. The one that has them standing in a dark hallway, trying to open the only door left standing between them and their cargo.

 _Failing_ to open the single, flimsy door in their way.

Aster glances up and down the hallway, never mind the futility of keeping lookout in the dark, and he holds back on the urge to tap his foot. “Mate, how long can it take to open a bloody door?”

“Oh? You would like to try, maybe?”

“Maybe I would, if it’d get us out of here before any guards come back to catch us at their shit!”

With a noise in the back of his throat, something between a grunt and a laugh, North waves him over to take a better look at the open security panel. It's not a difficult one to get by, mostly because the only thing it really needs is a valid ID card, but neither of them had wanted to make this job even _more_ of a pain in the ass by looking for a guard to rob.

The thing is, minimal checks usually means it's easy enough to get through by cracking open the panel and messing things about in the right way to bypass the scanner. They're not the most tech savvy people by any standards, but Aster has seen North open little things like this before.

He tells him as much, and North tuts. "Ah, but is not so little thing, you see? This here—" He holds the flashlight steady and points out one particular wire. "Usually, we would cut this, and _bam_! Door is open. But now there is extra trap in our way. I cut this, and _all_ alarms go off. This is security tripwire to stop us from doing just that."

Aster frowns at the pins and wires. Machinery is something he can handle. Fixing ships and engines when it's needed, not the more complicated problems, just enough to keep them in the air most days. When technology gets down to tiny computer parts and North needs special equipment for things like following a wire to figure out where it's going and what it does, then Aster is just as lost as anyone else. Save the fiddling for other jobs, because courier work ought to be straight-forward.

"There a way 'round it?" he asks. The sound North makes isn't exactly promising. The sound— "Wait, keep quiet a minute."

He hears footsteps. Light and quick, coming from somewhere down the hall and around a corner.

For a moment, Aster considers holstering the pistol he has and unclipping his rifle from his back, but he can only hear one coming, and they can't be packing much or they'd be a lot less quiet than they are. Easy enough for him and North to take with pistols alone.

A shadowed figure rounds the corner into their sights, and Aster cocks his handgun, loud and deliberate. It's dead silent on the entire floor, so he doesn't have to raise his voice much to be heard. "Oi," he says. "Stop right there, and give me one good reason not to shoot you."

They stop. There's silence as they weigh up their response, and then they call back:

"Because I'm breaking in here too, and if you shoot we're both gonna have to deal with a _crazy_ amount of guards, and neither of us wants that?"

... It's a fair point.

It seems safe enough to glance back at North to get a second opinion, and North shrugs. Not like it could be a _lie_ , at least; this isn't a play any Alliance security guard would attempt, which means they must have a third intruder on their hands, no matter what their goal here is. It seems simpler just to let things be instead of starting a fight. And maybe he's just soft, but he's not out to make things harder for someone who might just be trying to get by the same as them.

"Fine," Aster sighs, lowering the gun and decocking the hammer. "But you put one toe out of line and you'll lose it." Behind him, North is getting to his feet, and he points the flashlight down the hall to light up their unwelcome guest.

“Wow, xìng huì to you too,” says the intruder. It's a boy, lanky and pale, his blue eyes shockingly vibrant below a mess of white hair. Plain shirt, ragged cargo pants, scuffed boots. He’s not dressed like someone who came prepared for any sort of resistance — or anything at all, for that matter, he looks like he could have walked right in off the street. Not Alliance, not a mercenary, not a professional of any kind. On top of that, he's got a strong jaw, but his face is youthful. No scars or shadows. Bright eyes.

The kind of openness in his expression that only comes with never pulling the trigger on someone in your life.

Maybe Aster has to admit, however reluctantly, that it's— good he didn't shoot him. There's an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach just thinking about it.

After glancing between Aster and North a few times, the kid makes a vague gesture and asks, “Do you... want some help with that?”

The door, he means, waving towards it with some kind of device in his hand, something that looks cobbled together from scrap parts. He says it so condescendingly, _cocky_ , some bratty little genius who must think he's their only shot at ever getting inside. Aster is about to tell the boy exactly where he can shove his shoddy rigwork along with his _help._ North beats him to it with a quiet laugh.

“All yours, my friend,” he says. “I cannot get this fèi wù door open — and Bunny here, he is not so good with the high tech things.”

Aster can’t decide who he should be glaring at more.

In the end he settles for the boy, who slips past with a grin for North’s friendlier nature and neatly elbows them both away to clear himself a space in front of the identification scanner. The open panel must surprise him, because he makes a soft sound and pauses for a moment before he closes it up. And then from there, he does a few things in rapid succession, his hands moving with practised confidence; he waves the crudely-made device over the scanner, swipes a card through the ID slot, and punches a pin code into the number pad beside it.

There’s nothing at first. A blue light flashes a few times — and then it turns green with a polite chime, and the boy hisses through his teeth with triumph.

“It looks like you two were lucky I just wanted to get in here too,” he says as he straightens up, smug. Aster hates the brat already. "Grab whatever you want, gentlemen, it's free game."

The boy is the first into the room, flicking the lights on as he steps inside, and he heads straight for the far wall to rummage around in a filing cabinet there. There's no doubt he knows exactly what he's after, which is... strange. He _isn't_ a professional, Aster is certain of that. He's some nobody civilian who broke into an Alliance building and knows his way around their secure rooms, who gets through security with a junk box and a working ID card, who hasn't made a single move towards the cheap pistol he has holstered on his thigh. Nothing about this kid adds up.

It doesn't matter, though. They have a job to do, and the boy's got nothing to do with it.

"You start with these," North tells him, motioning towards a row of shelves. "I will take the others, hm?"

"Never again," says Aster. He glares back at North over his shoulder as he goes over to check the shelves. "You hear me, North? Never again. Next time he asks us to do a job like this, we say no. We're gorram outlaws. That might mean a lot of things, but I like it a whole lot better when _infiltrators_ isn't a part of it."

Whatever the order is to the things on the shelves, he can't figure it out. There's no choice but to look at the tabs on folders and pull out anything that sounds like it might be what they're looking for; blueprints, schematics for some new agricultural machines the Alliance is rolling out that they patented right away. It'll be a blessing for folk out on the Outer Rim, and getting the plans to build it all behind the Alliance's back will save them a fortune. Good cause, good pay, but a bad job.

"You have better job lined up?" he hears North ask, sarcastic. "He pays us good money, Aster, and we need money. His jobs are tough, and they are not usual work, but they are worth it. Besides, is not often he has something for us."

There's not a lot Aster can say to that. They _have_ been short on work lately, even more so than they normally are. It's not like they're often in a position to turn down a job being offered to them, especially one that pays well. Right now there are ship parts that need replacing, fuel that's starting to run low, and bellies that are going to go hungry soon if they don't get some supplies on board.

At the end of the day, this is better than what plenty of people living on the outer planets have to do just to get by. That just doesn't make flicking through sheets for these blueprints any less damn _frustrating_.

Funnily enough, the kid over in his corner doesn't seem to be any happier with what he's found. This whole time he's been quietly reading over something, and all of a sudden he swears under his breath and starts shoving papers back into the filing cabinet with rough, angry movements. It's tempting to watch him, to try and figure out what he's after and what he's doing, but — the job needs to be done, and Aster wants to be finished with it as soon as possible.

When the tantrum is over, the boy makes for the door without a word. Aster keeps searching, takes out another folder and flicks it open to see the contents, and then he realises that the footsteps stopped instead of fading away down the hall.

The kid didn't leave.

He and North both look over to find the boy standing in the doorway with a pair of wire cutters in his hand and a sheepish smile.

"Hey, so," he says, turning the little pliers over in his hands. "I'm all done here, and I'm not really that keen on sticking around much longer. But you guys seem like you're busy with something that might take a while, so I just figured I'd better warn you — uh, I need the ground floor clear, and I set off an alarm that's going to bring everyone in the building here." He waves the wire cutters and shoves them into his pocket. "You should hurry. Good luck!"

And the kid — no, the húndàn, the son of a whore little snake that Aster now wishes he'd shot out in the hallway after all — he _runs_.

There's no time for standing around in silence, but North and Aster are both so shocked that for a few seconds they don't speak and don't move.

The moment ends when North starts cursing in a string of Russian that Aster doesn't understand, and they both shove through folders on the shelves with much more urgency than before.

"If I ever see that brat again, I'm gonna kill him," snarls Aster while he searches. It doesn't make things go any faster, but it sure as hell does make him feel better. Every single folder he pulls out is _wrong_ , dozens of the things and by all that's holy, how much crap can the Alliance have in one place? Never again. They are _never_ taking a job like this again no matter how desperate they are, not even if the  _Guardian_ crashes out of the sky.

He gets all the way through the first side of the shelf, and he's halfway through the other side when North gives a hushed cry, " _Aha!_ "

"Tell me you found the bloody things."

"Yes! Is right here, says 'blueprints for crop—'"

 _Réncí de Fózǔ_ , they're done with this place. There's worse still to come, thanks to that backstabbing kid setting off the alarm, but it's a relief to have what they came here for anyway. Aster throws all the papers he's got to the floor and unclips the rifle from his back. He's got a feeling that he's going to need it this time. "I don't give a damn what it says, North, let's _move!_ "

By the time North has the papers safely tucked away in his satchel and he's ready with a heavy pistol in his hands, the lights on the rest of the floor are flickering back on, and the shadowy hallway becomes a bright stretch of sterile white and stainless steel, the Alliance's favourite décor. Firefights in the dark aren't exactly ideal, but hell. No cover, closed spaces, and full lighting for an escape through who knows how many guards? He'd take the dark just for one edge in this.

"Ready to go?" asks North, with his captain voice on.

Checking over his rifle, something familiar shifts in Aster; the thing that switches off whatever he doesn't need to get out of this alive, like rerouting power in a machine, and whichever parts won't help him go cold and quiet.

He pulls the hammer back. "Ready."

It's not going to be a good fight. From here to the back entrance downstairs they came in two floors down, everything is narrow hallways and stairwells, both of them bad ground for a firefight. _Stairs_ especially — but they can't risk getting trapped in the elevator or ambushed coming out of it. Not the fire exit, though, that would be hell to manage; they'll take the main stairs. Other than that... Well, there really isn't much space for planning this one out. Shoot and run, otherwise the Alliance guards will get set up at the end of the hallway and they'll be stuck in this room waiting out a stalemate until backup comes to flush them out.

Which means they need to start moving before anyone can get comfortable. Aster gestures for North to head forward and follows, listening for any noise that echoes from the stairwell as the two of them take up position on either side of the landing. They're not going to have much of a window. It'll all come down to luck and timing, and they don't have such good history with the former.

Really, Aster prefers to plan for _bad_ luck.

When the first guard up the stairs makes to check that the floor is clear, Aster is there to meet him; all it takes is a hard blow to the face from the butt of his rifle and the man is back down. There's an unholy racket as he falls, gear clattering against the stairs and his body hitting the landing below with a noise so loud it sounds like a _bang_ in the quiet, as much as any gunshot.

And then the shouting starts up from the others.

"I was sorta hoping he'd knock some more down with him," Aster calls. North laughs and moves in to look down the stairs; he fires off a few rounds, fire to scatter the guards following behind the one that fell, and Aster hears the scramble for cover, combat boots hammering against the concrete.

That's one landing cleared. The stairs make a turn, so they'll be the ones with the disadvantage, minimal cover and guards waiting for them to come, but they're doing alright. Impatience never does anyone good in a fight. Aster's plan for getting out of here alive and in two whole pieces takes things one landing at a time, little checkpoints to keep his attention focused on what needs to be done. One down is progress. One down is _good_.

Aster heads down the stairs, pleased to note that the guards dragged their unconscious friend with them, one less thing to think about. If he needs to get an opening here, he's got a flashbang — just the one, but the pay from this job will cover the expense. He just hopes it draws their eye so that the thing actually buys them the time they need.

With a quick gesture to the grenade to make sure North knows what he's doing, he pulls the pin and holds onto the canister for a moment, and then he tosses it down the stairs. It hits the floor with a harmless _clink_ , and Aster shields his eyes and turns away just before it explodes in a flash of brilliant light.

From the shouting, Aster would guess that it worked. He points two fingers forward, and North moves down the stairs.

The guards are blinded and deafened, four of them waiting at the bottom; each one goes down with a few blows, although Aster hears North's pistol go off behind him, so at least one of them put up more of a fight. It's the men further down the hallway straight ahead that pose a problem, squinting and dazed but still capable. Hefting up his rifle, Aster takes aim at one, squeezes the trigger, and flicks the lever to chamber the next round. Aim, trigger, lever. Aim, trigger, lever. They're capable — they just aren't fast enough.

North takes one more shot at a man that wasn't quite finished by the first bullet, and they're done. Not nearly as bad as Aster was anticipating, in the end, with no injuries on their side and only a few deaths on the other. He feels... settled, less heavy than he would if every body were a corpse.

"Let us get out of here," says North cheerily, as he does a quick survey of the hallway to check for any unpleasant surprises, "yes?"

Aster groans with relief. "Thought we'd _never_ get off this death trap planet. Is Sandy gonna be ready to take off right when we get back to the ship?"

Unclipping the radio from his belt, North turns to move down the hallway that leads to the back door. "We will know in just a moment. Maybe difficult if he has to start engine alone."

Which he will. It's a ridiculous arrangement, making the pilot run to the engine room to start up the ship and then back up to the bridge to actually fly the damn thing, but they can't do any better. They're a crew of four, and Toothiana isn't exactly involved in the process of running the ship. So when North and Aster are out on a job, there isn't anyone to haul the weight but Sanderson, who could probably keep an entire boat running on his own and still find time to doze off in the pilot's chair.

His rifle holstered, Aster pushes the fire escape bar on the back door and holds it open for North, who has gotten Sandy on the radio. "Ah, Sandy!" he booms, heedless of the fact that even if they're away from the guards they should really _keep quiet_. "We are heading back to ship now. You think you can have it all ready to go in that time?"

There's a chiming noise from the radio.

"Good, good! But take things easy, da? There is no rush." Aster glares at him. "Well, maybe slight rush."

The same chime, and then the radio goes dead. North clips it onto his belt, pats the satchel with their meal ticket in it, looks up at Ariel's sky — absent of any stars, cold and empty like it is on all the Core planets. After a life spent on ships and backwater planets, you can't look at a sky like that without feeling unsettled, a wordless sense of _wrongness_ rising up in protest. North sighs.

They start walking towards home.

* * *

No sound in all the 'verse is as comforting as the whirr of the  _Guardian_ 's engine turbines. It takes a while, too long, to get back to the blackout zone through back alleys and tunnels just because they couldn't risk drawing attention on a speeder. But it's all forgotten as soon as Aster sees the ship's silhouette in the dim-lit docks, hears the hum of her alive and well.

The cargo bay door is open, Toothiana leaning against the doorway and draped in all her expensive, glittering fabrics. It can't have been long since she got back in on her shuttle, and she still looks like she's only just gotten herself dressed and prettied up for the day, her eyes bright and alert as always. She smiles as they drag their tired feet up the ramp, pushing off to greet them.

"Good crime?" she asks, good-humoured. Aster ducks so she can push up onto her toes and kiss his cheek, the painted wax on her lips just a little sticky against his skin.

She steps back just in time to miss getting jostled when North claps Aster hard on the back as he passes. "Very good," says North, slipping the satchel strap off his shoulder. "We have blueprints for Man in Moon, there is no Alliance on our tails, and we have made friend!"

" _Friend_!" Aster explodes. He moves into the bay to let Toothiana close up the door behind them, and starts pulling off his rifle harness with sharp, angry movements, following North towards the stairs. Honestly, he's taken aback; sure, North hadn't been as angry about it as he is, but he hadn't expected to be hearing this. "You're missing a bit of sarcasm in your voice there, Captain! The kid nearly gets us hung, and you want to call him a friend?"

"Were _you_ going to get door open?"

Alright, so the brat did them one favour before he threw them out under the stampede, Aster still wants to put a bullet through something non-fatal on him. "Mate, one ruttin' door ain't the same as turning the guards on us," he says. "They don't even compare and you know it."

North keeps moving through the kitchen while Aster unloads his gear onto the table, headed for the stairs up to the bridge, and he doesn't call anything back in retort. While Aster is disassembling his rifle, Toothiana wanders in and clatters around in the cupboards; he doesn't look up, but he knows well enough that she's getting out pots and cups for brewing tea. Probably meant for all of them, given the mood Aster is in.

It's a mood that lifts somewhat with the rumble of the  _Guardian_ breaking atmo. The Core leaves a bad taste in his mouth, and he'll be glad to leave it far behind for another day, even in exchange for the din of Punjam Hy Loo. There's more honesty in the toothless space station snake oil vendors than there is in a single Alliance officer.

"So," says Toothiana as she pours tea into a pair of cups, "tell me about this friend you didn't make. Did something interesting happen?" She looks serene, but there's a thread of excitement in her voice, and the twist of her lips is from mischief rather than content.

Aster scoffs. " _Interesting_. Right. Well, some  fēng le little brat turned up in the building to show off his tech genius and get a door open for us."

Toothiana places a cup on the table in front of him, amidst the dismantled pieces of weaponry. He smells peppermint. "Of course," he goes on, "once he'd gotten what he wanted, the kid called for security and did a runner on us, so we had to fight our way back out through the guards and he didn't have to lift a bloody finger."

The tea is good. Toothiana's tea is always good, but sometimes she tries to give him herbal blends, chamomile, things that are bitter on his tongue and turn his stomach. They're  _good_ for him, she argues, and they might stop him from wandering the ship at all hours because he can't sleep. He doesn't care; he'll take sweets over sleep.

After the story is told, she looks over him, a concerned furrow to her brow at odds with her pleasant smile. "Nobody got hurt, did they?"

"Not a scratch," he assures her.

"Oh, good." She picks up her cup and takes an elegant sip. When she places it back down on the table, she turns the cup around and hums, like she's scrying tea leaves. "So, North liked your mystery boy because he helped... and you  _didn't_ like him because he decided to make things easier for himself at your expense."

There's something about her expression that— well, if it was on anyone else, Aster might bristle. Toothiana has a way of making everything softer so that it's hard to take offence, even when she actually means to cause offence. It's all that bloody Companion training, he's sure; the art of seduction and well-meaning manipulation, mixed in with an air of grace and sweetness that's all her own.

But she still seems to be laughing at him about something. He asks with a touch of caution, "What?"

"Nothing," she says, amused. She glances up at him with a look in her eyes he would almost call  _glittering_. "I just think it says a lot about the both of you."

Whatever unsuccessful interrogation into her meaning Aster is planning to attempt, it falls to the wayside as North's voice comes over the ship's speakers, breaking the kitchen's peaceful quiet.

" _Tooth, Bunny, we are getting message,_ " North announces. " _This is very_ _important message, so — bridge! Quickly! There is no time for tea on my ship, lazy moochers._ "

Toothiana gives her musical laugh, a sweet and delicate thing like chimes, and she stands from the table even though Aster knows how she hates to waste tea. He quickly drains the rest of his cup before he follows. It burns his tongue a little, and the taste of it all at once is so strong that it very nearly makes his eyes water, but Toothiana smiles at him with such fond appreciation when he comes to join her on the stairs up to the bridge.

At the pilot's console, North and Sanderson seem to be in an excited discussion about something. Sandy's hands are moving rapidly, half-formed signs and shorthand gestures to get his words across quicker, and North's voice has dropped to the hush that he only dips into when he's  _truly_ enthused. They don't break apart until Aster knocks on the wall just inside the doorway, turning to the interruption; Sandy smiles and waves. Aster would have to be a monster not to wave back.

"Did we hear from him?" asks Toothiana, sweeping forward to peer over the pilot's chair at the console. Aster takes Sanderson's other side, sticks his head in the gap between North and the chair. There's white text on the screen, just as expected.

Nobody sends  _text_. Waves are the preferred form of communication across the 'verse, video when it's available and voice-only messages if for some reason a video can't be done. Unless you're logging files for bureaucracy, there's little chance of seeing a message in text on a Cortex screen. If you're in signal range, any communication might as well be done by video. But the Man in the Moon has consistently, for all the years they've been in contact with him, only ever sent them communications in text.

The message is fine. The words in the message are not. 

> Congratulations on a job well done, _Guardian_. You have my thanks. Once they reach us, the schematics will be quietly distributed to planets on the Outer Rim to any who can make use of them. Your payment is waiting at Punjam Hy Loo.
> 
> However, there is another matter.
> 
> You encountered a young man in the Alliance building. His name is Jackson Overland, occasional alias Jack Frost, and he has a particular interest in the Alliance. His opinion of them is not favourable. Jackson is looking for something; he is going to need help.
> 
> His skills could be a great asset to you. It's in your best interests to bring him into your crew.
> 
> You'll find him on Burgess.

"Oh!" says Toothiana.

"Oh," says Aster, " _no_."

Worse still, somehow truly  _worse_ than the awful news searing itself into his eyes, is North standing proud beside the console like the whole thing was his idea. Obviously, he hasn't considered that if the blame for this were to be laid at his feet, Aster would have _clocked him_. As it is — Aster can't even argue with the Main in the Moon, much less come to blows.

But he can argue with the crew.

"Absolutely not," he says. All three of them protest at once, and so he has to shout over them, two voices and Sandy's loud little buzzer, "No way in hell! You're all delusional. That slimy little wretch ain't setting foot on the Guardian in a million million years."

North's voice always echoes in the metal chambers of the ship, and when he clears his throat now it's a great booming sound, a very deliberate and articulated  _A-HEM_. He folds his arms and stares down Aster with a frown that is making a valiant effort to be stern.

"Who is captain on this ship?" he asks, and Aster groans.

"North, for crying out loud—"

"Who is captain on _my gorram boat_?"

 _Shit_. For whatever godforsaken reason, North has already chosen his side. He's usually the fastest to go along with the Man in the Moon's suggestions without complaint, although the rest of them aren't often far behind; but this is something else, some mad idea he's gotten in his head that they should be doing anything with this— this _Jackson Overland_ kid other than wringing his scrawny neck for what he did.

So North is out of the question. But there could still be two other sane souls aboard the ship who can understand what a terrible, terrible idea this is.

Aster turns to Toothiana and asks, maybe a little desperately, "Tooth, _why_? You weren't even there to see the guy!"

Before she even says anything, Aster knows he's lost another one. For all her manners and masks, when Toothiana gets excited about something there's this mad look in her eyes, like she can't quite contain all of it. It's something wild, firey, almost fey in how it changes her. And she's got the look now.

She smiles, and all she says is, "I want to _meet_ him."

They're doomed. They're absolutely doomed; they're about to fly all the way out to some backwater nowhere planet to pick up an untested, cowardly thief who'll probably rob them blind, sabotage their engine, and fly one of their shuttles away to safety, because this crew is full of fucking _crazy people_. They've survived their long years of operating right under the nose of the Alliance, and now the dream is finally going to be ended over one nobody kid.

"Sandy," he begs, his one last hope.

Sanderson, at least, has the decency to give an apologetic shrug before he makes his stand. He signs simply and clearly: 'It would be good to have another person on the ship.'

Even Aster can't say anything to refute that point. Another set of hands would be good, and with the size of the _Guardian_ , they've needed it for a long time; another body to help with the cleaning, the cooking, running all the parts of the ship. It would be really, really good.

Oh, _hell_.

"I'm not going to like him," declares Aster, and that's the closest he'll come to admitting defeat.

North laughs and leans forward to clap Sandy on the shoulder. "Alright, Sandy! Let us be on our way to Punjam Hy Loo, and then — _then_ we will set a course for Burgess.

"We have a criminal to collect."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a small post-script to say that future chapters will probably be entirely from jack's perspective-- this was just a prologue of sorts! and sadly, there's not going to be any update schedule to speak of; chapters will come as they're written, hopefully not too slowly.


	2. ACT I, II

The first thing that comes to him is the sound. He hears the cacophony, cries and shouts and screaming; gunshots that crack through the air and ring in his ears like nothing he could name, just  _loud_.

He finds it, somehow he finds it between one breath and the next, stumbles into the settlement and looks around at the chaos, wild-eyed. The raiders are kicking down doors, kicking down anyone that gets in their way and even those that don't. A bullet, a knife, beaten into the ground. It doesn't matter when no one is getting back up. There are so  _many_ of them, too many to fight back against, like watching vultures swarm their wounded prey.

And none of it matters at all, because they took her.

They dragged her away shrieking at the top of her lungs, and let them put as many bullets in him as they want but he'll be damned if he lets her go. It just— it takes so much force to get his legs to start moving. He pushes himself forward every step of the way; no matter how hard he tries his own body just won't _listen_ to him. He should be able to run and he  _can't_ , like something vital has come loose between him and his body, a disconnect he can't claw his way back from.

Maybe it's the atmosphere that's pinning him down. There's a weight in the air, the ocean-heavy press of a cold dread that knows where this is going, and knows that it's nowhere good. It doesn't _matter_. She's still here and he won't let this happen—won't lose her—

Someone grabs him by the shoulder with a sharp iron grip. There's a shove that turns him around, and Jack goes staggering but he doesn't fall.

The raider is towering and awful, dark with a face that he can't even understand, every detail lost in a blur, somehow he knows for certain that this is the end and all he thinks is:

 _Emma_.

Jack wakes with a start and a few stutters of his heartbeat, feeling winded like he's just hit the ground from a fall.

In the hazy seconds it takes to reorient himself out of the dissipating shadows of the nightmare, awareness trickling back in, he takes a catalogue of his senses. His feet are so cold they hurt and his spine feels like one big bruise all the way down, twinging with pain no matter which way he arches it; he can smell the morning factory smoke, faint but still there, beneath the sharpness of cold air; and there's light filtering in pale and dim, enough to see by.

Not that there's much to see even with it – four other bodies asleep on the filthy carpeted floor, all of them huddled against the walls, wrapped up in whatever worn blankets and scraps of cloth they could find. The homey atmosphere of the poor and the desperate.

He really should have just shelled out the credits for a room at a bar. Traveller's shelters are always the worst, cramped and cold, useless for any actual rest.

As if the cold and the familiar exhaustion weren't enough, every line of his body aches so much he feels like he could have atrophied overnight. A few lazy stretches won't get rid of all the cramps from sleeping so poorly, but still; he flexes his toes and feet, tenses his muscles and lets them relax, sighing with relief. He tries to work out every crick that he can without leaving the blanket cocoon he's trapped himself in, but there are only so many joints he can crack before he runs out of ways to delay the inevitable day ahead.

And the longer he stays in bed, the more the nightmare creeps back in, black and seeping into every unoccupied crevice of his mind. Seeing it again even with his eyes open, he gets lost to it like stumbling through the dark, like something twisted and gnarled lives inside him that is always there, just smaller, quiet, only now it rears up and swallows him and—

 _Get up_.

Yeah. He supposes he has to. With a weak groan, Jack wriggles free of the blankets and gets to his feet with his arms stretched out over his head, and he reaches up on the balls of his feet.

And then he drops right back down to the floor, hissing out curses. “Tī wǒ de pìgu, it's _freezing_!”

 

* * *

 

He bundles up as much as he can to go outside, but it  _is_ freezing. Just like it is every morning on Burgess – and every afternoon, and evening, and night. There's no snow yet, but the promise of it looms heavy overhead, and the air feels like it's laced through with frost, clinging to skin and sinking down to the bone until the chill becomes an ache.

People that don't live on an ice planet like to try and claim that there are seasons even there, because of course there must be. Maybe it's no summer vacation on the Core, they say, but the climate changes in the harvest months, it _has_ to.

A year on Burgess would clear those misconceptions right up.

And Jack might have a solid twenty-one years of experience with the particular kind of sharp, biting cold that Burgess is home to, but it doesn't do anything to stop him from shivering out in the junkyard, crouched amidst a pile of rusty debris. Even the ship parts he's picking through have frost on their metal. His fingers have long since passed the point of hurting, and now they're just numb, which would be good if he wasn't at such a risk of cutting himself on every broken piece he shifts aside.

Junk. Broken. Outdated by nearly a decade. How can there be so many _useless_ parts here? He hadn't even had a specific thing in mind today, he just thought it would be worth his time to do a salvage run, take some pieces to repair and sell, others to pull apart and repurpose. Apparently not.

The hydraulic cylinder he's pulled out rattles when he shakes it, signs of a loose piston and broken seals, and he tosses it aside with a sigh.

Everything about the atmosphere is depressing and bleak. He's out here, alone, digging through a pile of frozen garbage. But to make it all that much worse, the guy that runs the junkyard keeps _watching_ him, his beady eyes set in a glare. Like he's just waiting for Jack to screw up.

Really, Jack can't believe anyone actually thinks he's going to steal something. He has a perfectly honest face, he thinks as he slips a circuit board into his pocket to join the coils of wire he's got squirrelled away, and it's _completely_ unfair that he gets put under scrutiny like this just because he only lives on Burgess every other month. He grew up on this rock just like any of them; it's not his fault if no one in the town centre knows his face.

To be fair, his bleached hair probably doesn't help with that any, nor the coloured contacts he wears on and off while he's here. But they didn't take much notice of him before those things either. There's a small handful of people in the outskirt settlement where he used to live that would still know him, and that's it.

He knows he should be glad of it. Anonymity is a precious gift when he's trying to slip by the watchful eye of the Alliance. At least this way he knows that if the Alliance ever does track him down to Burgess, they'll be hard-pressed to run into anyone that could sell him out.

It just sits in an uncomfortable way on his chest sometimes, to come back to a home that doesn't _feel_ like home, and to be just as alone here as he is out in the black. It's a bitter thing on his tongue, loneliness and a persistent, pervasive grief.

Nothing he can change, though, and Jack tries not to let it bother him too much. Or rather, he tries to just— ignore it. Pretend he doesn't feel it. He's in a sort of limbo for now; he should just focus on scraping money together so that when another lead comes up he has the credits he'll need to chase it. The last one he had out on Ariel was a total bust, and more than a week ago besides. He's starting to get desperate for new information.

He's prying the filters out of an atmo scrubber – because he doesn't need the whole thing so it would be ridiculous to pay for it, obviously, but someone in the docks mentioned a problem with their resonant exhaust that sounded like he might be able to fix with new filters and a little jerry-rigging – when he hears noise from the other side of the junkyard, something that sounds like distant conversation, and he pauses.

And maybe it's nothing, maybe it isn't. But it _is_ unusual for anyone else to be visiting a junkyard at the crack of dawn.

Jack's hands go still on the scrubber, waiting to eavesdrop on what's happening. From this far away, he can't make out what they're saying; just that there are three different voices, the junkyard owner's included. Even without the words, as they come closer, he can hear heavy accents in the strangers' voices.

They are, he thinks with a slow dawning horror, _awfully_ familiar. Ariel might have been more than a week ago, but he doesn't exactly meet a lot of people in his line of work.

Creeping his way back towards the front of the yard, through the maze of metal and abandoned furniture, Jack starts up a desperate prayer in his head for it not to be the men he thinks it is over there. There's no way it could be, no _way_. What would they be doing on Burgess? Would they really follow him out here from gorram _Ariel_ just because of one underhanded trick? That's raider talk, that targeted style of vengeance, and he hadn't pinned those two as raiders, but—

He peers around the gutted body of an old speeder and pulls back right away, heart in his throat.

 _Shit._ It really is them stepping out of the shack; even at a glance, he can tell. Both of them are tall and built solid, and with the military-grade gear they carry, they kind of stand out on a backwater planet like this.

The one talking to the junkyard owner is a towering figure, and by that alone Jack remembers him as the one with the Russian accent. His darker-skinned companion stands with his arms crossed, posture rigidly straight and hair cropped close to his scalp, distinctly _military_ in everything from his bearing to his surly glare. He's even wearing a brown coat, a battered old thing like he's a poster boy for the Independents. It could be a coincidence, but if it's not, well, that's just _typical_.

Jack has to get the hell out of here, and he has to do it fast.

At least he's no stranger to quick exits, because he can already see his way out. There's a stack of crates for small spare parts that should give him the height he needs to make it over the barbed wire fence, and thank God that an electrified fence is expensive enough to be a luxury out here. If he stays low to the ground then the mess of machinery will give him cover, and he's quick, he'll be safe once he gets past the fence... just as long as they're not planning on putting a bullet in him already. Wǒ de mā, what did he do to deserve this?

Well. Other than the stealing, and then leaving these two might-be-raiders for dead. But he hadn't had a lot of options there. Considering what it's for in the long run, he thinks that ought to be damn near enough to earn him forgiveness for one or two transgressions.

 _Slow_ isn't usually Jack's way of doing things, but he straps his bag on tight and creeps across the yard so carefully that he can barely hear the frost crunching under his boots, and once he's there he starts climbing the crates one step at a time. Pulse hammering down to the tips of his fingers, he tells himself: _slowly_.

With his whole body curled in close and low to the ground, he moves inch by inch by inch, keeps his head down and doesn't shift about. He doesn't need the scavenged bits in his pockets jangling around and giving him away. Doesn't need his  _breathing_ giving him away either, and it's taking so much effort to keep that steady when the panic is pressing down on his chest.

It's not exactly easy to lift himself up onto each crate without straightening up. Pain lances through his muscles and he's worrying that the awkward position is going to throw off his balance, but it doesn't have to be _easy_ , it just has to be doable. Which it is, because it  _has_ _to be_.

Slowly. Just like that time he and Emma were caught out on too-thin ice over the lake; he knows how to do this.

Until someone shouts, “THERE!” and he just gives up on slowly altogether.

The good thing is that he already has a head-start, and he's almost there. He feels a swell of hope in his chest – god, he can actually _make_ this. The fence's edge is so close and he nearly loses his balance scrambling to the top of the crate stack, his boots slipping on ice, thinking he'll make it, he'll make it, he'll hit the ground and run for as long as he has to. One foot on the barbed wire, ready to just throw himself over to the other side, and—

An arm snaps tight around his legs and pulls him back, hard.

His stomach lurches in anticipation of the fall and he yelps, reaching out for something to catch himself on even though he _knows_ there's nothing, nothing he can do except flinch and wait for the impact – and then Jack is suddenly winded by a shoulder pressing into his gut, pinned against it by an iron grip laid across his back.

Oh. Oh, no.

“He is slippery one!” crows the Russian brute carrying him. When he laughs, a great booming sound, it jostles Jack, slung over his arm like an animal carcass and left staring dumbly at the ground.

All of his adrenaline leaves him in one wheezing exhale. For several minutes, he watches the man's boots crunch through the frost in silence while he processes what the _hell_ just happened, watches the scraps of metal and wire passing by underfoot as he gets carried out of the junkyard. There's really nothing else he _can_ do. The arm across his back is like a steel beam, and there's another one pinning his legs down.

And even if it was worth it to struggle, a glance up confirms that the Russian's partner is still following along behind him, glaring at Jack; the effect of his glower is only amplified by the lines of tattoos on his forehead. He is probably, Jack thinks, waiting for him to try and escape so that he can shoot him.

Just for a moment, Jack blocks out the part where he's getting hauled away on someone's shoulder and tries to focus on the rest.

He's not dead, which is a good start. It's also about the only good thing that comes to mind, because if they came all the way out here to the backwater Outer Rim to find him and  _not_ kill him on sight, then they can only have worse things planned that call for him to be taken alive. Would they really torture him for revenge over one tiny stab in the back? Or did the Alliance make a deal with them? Shit, he hadn't even considered that when he left Ariel.

Some of his panic must show on his face, because the military guy asks, “You know why we're here, kid?” His accent is something strange, unrecognisable; a kind of British, maybe, god knows there are enough of those accents in the galaxy that survived from Earth-That-Was.

Jack grits his teeth. He obviously doesn't know why this is happening, and the asshole doesn't have to be so smug about it.

“No,” he says, a little strained through the pressure on his stomach, “I have no idea why you came out to the edge of the 'verse to kidnap a guy that you only met once.”

And he _probably_ shouldn't antagonise someone that might be planning to torture him a few minutes from now.  _Sorry, Emma,_ he thinks, wincing. Just add it to the list of things she can never know about, when he gets around to telling her the story someday.

Military Guy doesn't look pleased by the response, but he doesn't seem to be reaching for any of his weapons either. “A guy that turned us over to the Feds.”

“ _Once_.”

“It doesn't matter how many gorram—”

The Russian makes a gruff noise that interrupts them both, although Jack is much more effectively silenced by the way he adjusts his hold on the live cargo he's carrying as if it's an empty sack instead of one hundred and thirty squirming pounds of blood and bone. “Bunny,” he rumbles, scolding. “ _Hush._ ”

 _Bunny_. He had said the same thing back on Ariel, now that Jack thinks about it. There's absolutely no way this angry soldier type could be named Bunny. Sure, Jack is in just about the worst situation he's ever been in, but that's  _too good_. He's sure as hell not getting out of this easy, so he has to take what little he can enjoy, right?

At the very least, it might stave off the panic lurking on the edges of his mind; the familiar buzzing static over all of his nerves and dark spots creeping in on his vision. And it's not as if there's anywhere downhill to go from torture.

“Don't you even start,” snaps Military Guy before Jack can even open his mouth. “It's _Bunnymund_ , you little brat.”

Jack doesn't bother to hide his grin.

The Russian is laughing again, low chuckles this time. “You will see soon, Jack,” he says, and if it's meant to be reassuring, it really isn't. “We are nearly home.”

Home— and Jack startles because, wait, from the _junkyard_? The only place nearby is the center of town, but they're going in the wrong direction for that. There isn't anywhere that could be called home for miles, nothing out this way but forest.

He needs to look ahead, firstly because maybe it will help him figure out what the hell this lunatic is talking about, and secondly because he's not enjoying the view of civilization getting further and further away from him. It takes some awkward squirming, but he manages to get into a position where he can crane his neck just enough to see.

“Listen,” Jack says, getting annoyed now, “I know this rock better than you, so I know there's nothing out this way, and _oh_ _my god_ _is that a Firefly_.”

He doesn't even need to ask. The shape of it is unmistakeable for anything else, a rounded main body and a long neck up to the cockpit, the gold-glowing rear drive core that gives the class its name. It's an _old_ Firefly-class ship settled there just shy of the forest fringes, with a dull patchwork plating; at least an 03 model, extenders built in below the wings but the hull too small to be a Series 4. No guns that he can see, either; it's a civilian build.

Fireflies were his favourite ships, back when he was a kid.

( _They look silly,_ Emma would complain when he pointed them out at the shipyard. He'd told her that, fine then, when he was sailing around the 'verse in his Firefly and having adventures, she couldn't come with, and she had gotten so indignant about it that Mom had to step in.)

But if he ever needed confirmation that these two are criminals, here it is. There's not a lot of freelancers that fly old boats like this nowadays except the ones that can find use for the abundant storage space and hiding places on board – smugglers, basically. It's a ship for smugglers and thieves.

Being able to strike 'raiders' off the list isn't much of a comfort, because he hadn't realised until now that he might have to worry about being sold into slavery too. They could smuggle him past the Alliance anywhere they wanted in a Firefly and sell him out on one of those hellscape mining moons, and Jack has heard the stories, it can take _years_ to escape from something like that.

He's been deliberately trying not to think about the pistol he has holstered on his hip, and now he's starting to think it might have to be a possibility. If he even gets a  _chance_ to use it, that is.

“You like her?” the Russian asks. Something in the way he says it is fond, warm, and Jack hadn't expected it. “This is the  _Guardian_.”

It's still hard to see, even arching his spine until it hurts just to look over the Russian's head, so he doesn't get as good a look as he'd like at the best parts. And maybe twenty minutes ago he would have been thrilled even to go into the cargo bay on a Firefly, but the footsteps clanging on the ramp as he's carried inside have a terrible, ominous quality to them. Right now, the last place in the 'verse he wants to see is the cargo bay.

 

* * *

 

Once they're inside, Jack gets set down on one of the metal crates in the bay in a move of surprising gentleness, given that he'd expected to be dropped unkindly to the floor. Despite his lingering childhood enthusiasm, the cargo bay alone isn't much of a sight: empty for the moment, other than the stacked crates he's sitting on and a single land vehicle. There's a doorway on the back wall and a gangway overhead, and little else to note.

He  _is_ impressed, begrudgingly, by how spacious it is. The walls are angled out to make it feel as wide as it can, and he likes the design of it.

But now really isn't the best time for getting starry-eyed over ship builds, when he still doesn't actually know why he's here. With Jack seated, the Russian steps back from him to stand alongside Bunnymund, and he claps his hands together. His grin is the kind of wide that could be called ear-to-ear, and it's...

Actually, it's not all that scary. But it doesn't do much to loosen the fear holding Jack's throat in a vice.

“Okay! Now we are getting to good part.” The Russian clears his throat and spreads his hands with an unnerving amount of cheer. His voice drops half an octave, and he announces, with a dramatic air, “Jackson Overland! I am Captain Nicholas North.  _Guardian_ is my ship, and the unfriendly glowering man is Aster Bunnymund. You are wondering why we brought you here? Well, this is because...”

 _Captain_ North starts thumping his hands on his belly. It takes a second for Jack to realise that he's trying to do a drumroll.

“... we have proposition for you!”

It feels like the whole world tilts just a little with the force of Jack's confusion. “What?” he asks. He looks to Bunnymund, maybe expecting something that makes sense, since obviously North is just _cracked_. Bunnymund only rolls his eyes.

“We want you to join our crew,” North says with finality, and the world tips the rest of the way over until it flips entirely, leaving behind a terrible sense of something like vertigo.

“What?” Jack asks again, frantically this time, scrambling for some sort of footing in this conversation. He's the only person in the room that doesn't understand what's _happening_ here, and there's anger that surges over the top of his fear, but when that burns out he just feels... lost. It's too much and  _sudden_. Twenty minutes ago he was wondering how much money he could get for a hack repair job.

There are a hundred questions he can think of and he'd ask them all at once if he could, but he has to settle on one, and the one that he finally ends up with is:

“ _Why?_ ”

Bunnymund crosses his arms and the movement draws Jack's eye to him for a moment; his expression is narrow-eyed, considering, something about Jack ticking over in his mind. Belatedly, it hits Jack that North had said  _crew_ , that of course there must be more people than the two of them here to run this ship. So much for escape.

“Why,” North echoes with amusement in his voice, in the curve of his eyes, “ _why_ , because Man in Moon says so!”

Son of a _bitch_.

There isn't even shock this time so much as just a crushing wave of exhaustion, and Jack closes his eyes against it. This is ridiculous. Everything about this situation is _ridiculous_ and it's seriously wearing on him, trying to keep up with it all.

But – the Man in the Moon. Something hollow opens up inside of Jack, and then it fills with a breathless sort of anger.

In every planet's underworld, every information-trading circle that Jack has ever wormed his way into, they talk about this guy like he's the closest anyone has ever found to a god. He sees everything, knows everything, and sometimes he doesn't even ask a price for sharing it. It had taken months for Jack to scrape together enough money just to get in contact with him, and he had answered with absolutely nothing. Not even a simple  _no_.

Jack opens his eyes to glare. “The guy didn't help me even when I _asked_ ,” he snaps. “Why should I do anything he wants?”

Bunnymund shares a glance with North that Jack can't get a read on, both of their brows furrowed, their frowns deep and thin-lipped. They both look tense, and for a long moment, neither of them speak.

“This ain't about him,” says Bunnymund eventually, speaking up for the first time since they reached the ship. No answer to Jack's question, which is a fairly obvious shut-down on that conversation. “It's about you and us. North's inviting you to join  _us_.”

“Right, okay,” Jack says. He can't see much of a difference, if they really are – what, working for the Man in the Moon? Does he have people like that? Jack leans back on his hands and he goes on, “So, new question: why in suǒyǒu de dōu shìdàng would I want to fly with a couple of outlaws? No offence, but seriously, I get enough trouble as it is.”

The sound that wrenches out of Bunnymund is indignant, furious. “Like we're the only criminals here! Who was it going through those Alliance files on Ariel like he'd done it a thousand times?”

And while Bunnymund bristles and bares his teeth, North gets this... _look_. Jack doesn't know the guy, couldn't say what it means, but he doesn't like it. He feels like he's being put under a magnifying glass with those clear blue eyes staring straight at him, and he doesn't want to hear the conclusions, because either they'll be right or they'll be wrong and both options sound awful.

“Jack,” North says at last. He strokes his sharp-cut beard, his mouth skewed into a thoughtful moue. “On Ariel. What was it you were looking for?”

Everything in Jack slams shut.

“ _Nothing_ ,” he insists quickly. They must know he's lying but it doesn't matter, he's not going to lose all his hard work now. His grip is white-knuckled on the edges of the crate beneath him, cornered, trying to think of a way out of this. He's never been very good at appeasing people; he's never needed to be, because he doesn't get caught.

North's expression softens, almost pitying. “Jack. We can _help_.”

Jack shakes his head without even thinking about it, an automatic rejection. No, he won't let them take this. If he could trust them, though...

If he took the offer— he'd be in the air so much more often than he can be now, when he's grounded between jobs while he scrapes together the money he needs just to get off-planet again. They might catch the attention of the law sometimes, but it would at least give Jack cover for what he's really after, if the Alliance thinks he's some petty crook. Smuggling isn't exactly luxurious and it's _still_ better money than scavenging, the things he's reduced to when nobody has better work for him. It's a _chance_.

Shit. He weighs it up in his head, the pros against the cons, and comes to the same conclusion on the second consideration. _Shit_.

"I," he starts to say, without any idea of where the sentence is going, and he bites the inside of his cheek instead.

When he started all this, he told himself that it was always going to be him working on it alone, only relying on anyone to give him what he paid them for at best. Isn't that how things work, out in the black? It's all pirates and mercenaries. People that will stab you in the back for a flash of coin.

It occurs to him now that he might have been naïve. Not because he decided he couldn't trust anyone, that much is still true, but because he actually thought he could do all of this on his own. It's just like any other time, he argues against his own uncertainty; just like paying someone for information, or hiring assistance for a job that's too much for him.

There's still fear settled into his spine like ice, chest tight with trepidation, but... what else can he do? That's all it comes down to, in the end. His hopelessness weighs heavier around his neck than anything that could hold him back. If he has to let it drown him, then  _fine_. She matters more than that; more than anything in the 'verse, and he's taken too long already.

Besides, they've both dropped their guard by now. If this goes badly, he can... he can shoot them. Or he hopes he can.

“Okay,” Jack sighs.

And thinking about this, looking back on it all and trying to find the words for it – he's suddenly drained. It's the first time he's ever had to explain the whole situation. He's not even sure where to start. Should he tell them what he was looking for first, and then go back to say why? The attack isn't really something he wants to describe but that _is_ technically where it began, so...

It's frustrating. This has been his whole life for years, and now he has to sum it up like it hasn't been constant, unending; like it hasn't eaten him alive, like it isn't the only thing he ever thinks about anymore. But he has to start small to lay it out clearly.

“The Alliance kidnapped my sister.”

Oh. Or he could just start with that, okay, that's fine – not quite what he had planned, it kind of just came out of his mouth. But it certainly gets their attention. Bunnymund and North go wide-eyed; Bunnymund is so shocked that his stance falls loose.

Jack runs a hand through his hair nervously and he hates how coarse it feels. “Uh, that's not... I didn't do that right,” he says, frowning to himself. He tries again: “So, about four years ago, a bunch of raiders hit Burgess. Mostly just the settlements that are pretty far away from town. I lived out there, and we had no chance of fighting back, because, I mean, these guys were serious. Nobody knew why they were there, but... they took some kids when they left. One of them was my little sister, Emma.

“I wanted to go straight after her but Mom was really sick, so I...” Stayed. Waited. Watched her fade away a little more every day, while every day Emma got a little further away too.

There's a pressure building in his throat and his eyes are stinging, which is pathetic; he's got a criminal audience and besides, he's not a fucking _child_ anymore, he can't  _cry_. He breathes out slowly, trying to forget what his mother looked like, pale against the sheets, and remembers instead the way she held his hand the last morning he saw her.

His next exhale is shaky, but the moment has passed.

He picks up again, “Anyway, Mom passed away a few months later, and I took off with all the money we had left. It got me to the Border planets and helped me find enough work to get more money together. But the first time I had enough, I blew it on trying to get in contact with the Man in the Moon, which was _useless_.”

That hits a nerve, apparently.

“You realize he doesn't _actually_ know everything, don't you?” Bunnymund snaps. Just like that, all the tension is back in the line of his shoulders, feet planted ready to weather a storm.

“Yeah,” Jack rolls his eyes, “I did know that, thanks. If he wasn't going to help, the least he could've done is said _something_.”

Bunnymund looks about to respond, but North holds up a hand and he falls silent. His frown is solemn. “Where does the Alliance come into this?” North asks.

“I had my ear to the ground on a bunch of different circles,” Jack says, “intel brokers and things like that, and some people were noticing there had been a few attacks on Outer Rim planets around the same time. Just... the kind of thing the Alliance doesn't really care about, you know? But all of them had kids taken like Burgess. And this trader, Zhen Mei—”

A scoff from Bunnymund interrupts him. “Oh, come _on_. Zhen Mei? That conspiracy theorist?”

He goes to defend her, and then he pictures the woman: half-dressed and wild-eyed against a backdrop of screens, looking half a corpse in the blue light. His mouth shuts with an audible click. “Alright, she's nuts, it doesn't mean she's _wrong_. She was tracking all this stuff, and I talked to her about it. She thinks it was the Alliance. And it's not like she came up with this out of nowhere, there were drop-offs and pick-ups that matched, they were moving—”

“Can you believe this crock, North?” Bunnymund cuts him off again. “Lying to save his own bloody skin.”

Jack's voice dies in his throat. He digs his fingernails into his palms, the sickly heat of humiliation crawling across his skin, and he doesn't push past the interruption this time. What did he expect, honestly? It  _does_ sound crazy, and he has no reason to even believe in it himself aside from a gut feeling and the desperate need for Emma to be out there somewhere because this has to be something he can fix.

“I do not believe he is lying.”

His head snaps up.

Bunnymund beats him to the incredulous questioning, turning on North with a baffled, “You what, mate?”

North folds his huge arms. “Why would raiders take children? Is good question, Bunny. We would not have. I do not find it hard to believe that there is something else behind this; and we both know that the Alliance is more than capable of it.” There's a heaviness to the last part, words with history behind them. His attention shifts to Jack, whose mind is skipping on ' _we would not have_ ', not sure what it means. “Jack. We will help you find your sister, if you will join our crew.”

There it is again. And he knows, alright, he _knows_  this is an opportunity, that it might be the only way he'll ever make any progress. It still isn't easy to say yes. Something gets in the way and the words catch behind his teeth, snagging on the last tethers of his fear,  _don't trust them_  —

He sees Emma's face, her eyes big and round and scared, and he says again, “Okay.”

It doesn't feel like damning himself, exactly, though he still isn't sure this is the right decision. North's expression floods with warmth, his eyes crinkled by his smile. “Excellent!”

“What good is he even gonna be?” asks Bunnymund. He looks sour about something; like maybe he hadn't expected this to actually end with Jack taking ship with them. Well, fuck him. He can't resent someone for accepting an offer they were given, and he's not the captain anyway.

Jack answers the question to North instead. “I fix ships,” he says. “Or I mean, I can. Uh, I'm good with most kinds of tech – and I know how to run an engine, not just repair it.”

“You see, Bunny? Is  _destiny_ ,” North says slyly, elbowing his partner, and then to Jack, “Good, good! We are in need of mechanic. The  _Guardian_ is solid ship, but she is too much for only four of us.”

“Four?” Jack asks. That's a small crew; the bare essentials at most.

“Ah, yes! Introductions! Let us do this the proper way.” Clapping a hand down on Bunnymund's shoulder, North announces, “You have met Bunny – Aster Bunnymund, he is gunner and doctor. Bunny fought in the Unification War, so he is no Alliance friend.”

Even if he  _wanted_ to act polite, Jack can feel his expression twist with distaste at the mention of the Unification War, too much of a reflex for him to stop. He could pretend it hadn't happened, he's sure they would let it slide; but instead he says with a touch of dryness, “So the coat's not just a fashion statement, then. Good to know.”

Bunnymund's eyes narrow. “Got a problem with the Independents, boy?”

Jack shrugs with an honest nonchalance.

“I just don't think a soldier is anything special, that's all,” he says.

It's funny, how predictable anyone who fought in the war is, no matter which side they fought for. Alliance and Independents both, they're all the same brand of self-righteous, proud, holier than thou  _assholes_. They think he should kiss the dirt that falls from the soles of their boots just because they were soldiers. They sure as hell don't like it when he refuses.

The barb hits exactly how Jack expects it to, and he watches Bunnymund's spine straighten, his shoulders square, his jaw set rigid. He's so easy that Jack has to bite the inside of his cheek to curb a grin.

“You've got no idea the things those soldiers went through,” Bunnymund says, low and dark, “so I'd watch your mouth if I were you.”

There's no shiver of fear down his spine, even though he's all too aware of how easily Bunnymund could kill him, hurt him; even though the guy is armed to the teeth. He just gets the same prickling irritation he always has around soldiers. It buzzes in his head like white noise, crawls under his skin so near to the surface that it itches.

 _I'm not afraid of you_ , he wants to say, but he doesn't want to acknowledge the tension out loud. He pushes up off the crate and gets to his feet, a head shorter than Bunnymund and half his weight.

“Yeah,” he says, “and I bet _reavers_ have been through a hell of a lot. Am I supposed to respect them too?”

Bunnymund's fist catches him in the left side of his jaw.

Without a chance to brace himself for it, Jack falls back against the crates, his spine striking hard against an edge, and there's a thunderous crash as some of them topple. The pain explodes all through the side of his face and it rings through his teeth; he can taste coppery blood in his mouth and god, it's hurting all the way up to his temple, a horrible spiderweb of aches spreading out from the spot the punch actually hit.

He didn't even hit his head on anything on the way down and he's still so rattled that it takes a few tries for him to sit upright. North is there to help him, crouching down and keeping Jack up with a hand halfway down his back.

That was... He hadn't been expecting  _that_. It's not that the violence is unexpected; he's had Alliance soldiers swing at him in bars for less. But Bunnymund didn't snarl, didn't grab at him or even telegraph his intent. The blow was too tight, too controlled, like a snake lashing out. Through the reflexive tears blurring his vision, Jack watches Bunnymund turn and walk away, waving once over his shoulder as he heads up the stairs and out of the cargo bay.

“Welcome to the crew, jackass,” Bunnymund calls down from the gangway. “I'll see you around the ship.”

He disappears through a door overhead, and silence settles in his wake. Jack's pulse is thumping from the adrenaline burst, and every heartbeat is a pulse of pain in his jawline.

North is still at his side, and he doesn't say anything as he helps Jack to his feet, a hand gripping his elbow. When Jack glances up to gauge his mood, he finds that North has a pleasantly neutral expression on, too controlled to be anything but deliberate. Either he's not taking sides, or he's just being nice enough not to tell Jack that he thinks he deserved it.

Which he _didn't_. The war has been over for five years, and it's not like he ever asked anyone to go fight for him. The Independents lost, the Alliance went through with Unification, that's how the galaxy works now. It's high time for all of them to get over it already.

Once Jack is steady on his feet, pain lacing up his spine from where it hit the edge of the crate, North moves to get them ready to leave. He pauses at the intercom, one hand resting on it, and turns to look at Jack, who's tentatively testing his jaw for any really bad aches; he can still move it for now, but it's likely going to be hell tomorrow.

“You are ready to go, Jack?” North asks. “Nothing to go back into town for?”

It doesn't sound much like a question. It sounds like he already knows the answer and he's being polite.

Jack shakes his head anyway. He'd have to be an idiot to leave anything at the traveller's shelter, and he hasn't taken anything from his old settlement house in a long time.

North chuckles, a genuine sound. “I know your type. Carrying your whole life in your bag so you are always ready to move.”

He tips his head towards the duffel bag resting on Jack's hip. Jack puts a hand on it in a protective reflex – and he doesn't care if it's ridiculous because North is right, it's his whole life in there, more than tools and tech and coin. He's carrying everything he has left in the 'verse.

Apparently choosing to ignore the way Jack is clutching at his bag like he expects to be mugged here in the cargo bay, North punches the intercom button. He leans in to speak into it, _way_ louder than he needs to, “Sandy! We have our thief, you are cleared for take-off. Jack and I will get her running!”

Instead of a confirmation from what he assumes is the pilot, Jack hears some sort of bell on the other end of the line.

It must be enough for North, who hits the controls to seal the cargo bay doors and heads for the stairs as the ramp closes up behind him. As the ramp raises, the barren, frosted ground disappears behind it first; then the distant shapes of the few tall buildings that stand in town, and the smoke spilling out from the factories; and Jack watches until the last sliver of white sky overhead is gone, still promising the snow that has yet to fall.

He's left Burgess more than a dozen times before now. This shouldn't be any different, and it is. Something tells him that he's putting nails in a coffin, even if he isn't sure what that will mean for him.

He follows North up the stairs to the gangway in silence, still feeling unsteady and a little stunned, until they stop for a moment in front of one of the ship's two shuttles. North hums, thoughtful.

“Tooth is on a call, so we will go to the engine room first, hm? She will be finished soon enough. And Sandy will need us there to start the ship.”

 

* * *

 

The engine room is a _mess_.

“I can see I'll be starting at rock bottom here,” says Jack, and he's joking but – god, it's going to take _forever_ to clean this thing up.

With the panel open on the engine, he can see so many parts that need to be replaced and removed, a dozen poor routing paths, parts that are sucking up power when they aren't even _doing_ anything for this model of Firefly. The engine must be out of a different ship, maybe an 04 Firefly, it wouldn't surprise him if this ship is cobbled together from whatever worked. Unfortunately, nobody has taken the time to modify things to actually _fit_.

North only looks confused by his distress. “What do you mean? Bunny is neat freak. The engine room is always tidy.”

“Ti— No, I mean the engine!” Jack spins the engine around on its axle to expose the other side, looking for a really clear example. “Look,” he points to the wiring, “this routing puts so much stress on the combustion that I'm kind of impressed it hasn't caught fire yet.”

“Hm.” North doesn't seem concerned. Obviously, he doesn't understand what a miracle it is that he's still alive, much less that he's been able to fly this long. “Well! It is good we have you now.”

So he says. Jack isn't so sure he's the answer to their problems. Yes, he's been fixing things for a while now, taught himself by necessity when he left to chase down Emma and learnt what else he could over the years even when that meant paying for the knowledge; it's been a good source of work, especially on the Outer Rim where people have less access to mechanics and resources for repairs.

But he's never maintained an engine long-term, and certainly not one for a ship of this size. He isn't ever _on board_ the ships he fixes, either. Knowing they could be dead if he fucks something up isn't actually a great motivator.

His feeling of dread only gets worse when he watches North go to the front end of the engine and pull a lever that brings the engine to life, the manual switch for this model – which is for emergencies, when the engine dies and you're starting it up again after it gets fixed, or it got knocked out by a power surge or an explosion or...

“There,” says North, “now Sandy can take us off.”

An awful, strangled noise leaves Jack's throat. His voice comes out in a higher pitch, horrified, “You have to start the engine from _here?_ What'd you do, pull out the ignition line and sell it for ammo?”

“Ah, we had to reroute to have engine running again,” North explains. “Bunny said the ignition line would not work with the new configuration.”

“Yeah, not if you butcher everything just to make it run it won't!”

North only laughs, full-bellied; it's an even louder sound in here, echoing off the metal walls and ringing in Jack's ears. “You are mechanic now, Jack! You are free to work on engine all you like.”

“Great,” Jack says. “I may as well just live in here, with how much I'm going to be fixing it.”

He's startled by North's hand suddenly pressed on his back, steering him away from the engine and towards the door. “For now, we will go see Tooth,” North says over his half-hearted protests. “Tinker later! If I do not take you to her, she will be very cross indeed.”

Resigned, Jack lets himself be pushed down the hall and into the kitchen, where North finally breaks from him to round the partition and rummage for something in the cupboards.

It's a contrast to the rest of the ship. Where everything else is metal and dullness, like the unpolished skeleton of a more modern structure, the furniture in here is wood and plastic, the metal walls painted, scuffed linoleum on the floor; there's even an alcove set up with a couple of worn-looking armchairs and a tall bookcase, the closest thing to planetside familiarity on board. The lights overhead are yellow, too, warmer by far than the standard white in the corridors.

But while it's brighter and more welcoming than anywhere else that Jack has seen so far, the paint on the cupboards and the countertop is all peeling, and the color has started to fade from the walls in a way that makes the room look washed-out. He thinks he saw a block of wood wedged under one of the legs of the dining table. The  _Guardian_ is hardly in its best days.

Lingering by the dining table, Jack considers North. There are a lot of things that... don't  _contradict_ , really, but don't seem to fit together.

“Hey, Captain?”

North looks over his shoulder to him, pleasantly surprised by the title.

“You told me about Bunnymund,” Jack says cautiously. “How'd you end up here?”

There's a soft mutter in what Jack thinks is Russian, and North takes two glasses from the cupboard and closes it behind him, moving to the sink to fill them both with water. “I am being forgetful in my old age,” he says over the sound of the tap running. “Soon there will be mutiny from you young whippersnappers.”

Jack feels brave enough to smile at that, and North returns it with a grin of his own. Once the glasses are filled, he brings them over to the dining table to set them down, and then he sits heavily in one of the wooden chairs, sighing.

“It is not a past I am proud of, Jack,” he says, slow and solemn, his expression grave, “but once I was a raider myself.”

A chill runs along Jack's nerves. _We would not have,_ North had said, about raiders and taking children, and it makes sense now.

Still, it's difficult to imagine. North and Bunnymund are criminals, sure, but plenty of ordinary folk will turn to crime when pressed. Being able to put a bullet in someone when you have to doesn't make you a monster, not this far out in the world – just better at this sort of life than Jack is. It's survival. But raiders are the worst type to run into in the skies, vicious and ruthless, cruel far beyond pragmatism.

Jack tries to adjust his image of North a little, in light of this information. And maybe North can see it happening on Jack's face, because his brow furrows with a pained sort of remorse.

“People make bad decisions at times, yes?” he says, spreading his hands in front of him with a pleading sort of helplessness. “It was mine. I was very foolish young man, and the galaxy is very big place. I thought, it does not matter if I am hurting one or two people! There are millions in the 'verse, and the strong will come out on top of things.”

North shakes his head sadly, like he pities the person he used to be. He looks older, under the overhead lights; the lines in face deepened by shadows, light catching on grey hairs in his dark beard.

“This was not good way to be,” he says at last. “Man in Moon helped me to see this, and so, you see why I am grateful to him?”

“I guess,” Jack says, even though he doesn't. It's not that he doesn't believe it; more that there's a dissonance when he tries to imagine it, so he doesn't try at all. He has no idea what it would be like, to be a raider. He can't think of being grateful to the Man in the Moon.

He gets the feeling that North knows he's lying, and he takes a long drink from his glass just to have an excuse for avoiding eye contact, glad to wash the taste of blood out of his mouth if only a little. The back of his neck prickles with the sensation of being watched.

The silence stretches on for a long time, long enough that Jack finishes off his water and is left waiting, awkward. Finally, North stands from the table, drains his glass in one huge gulp, and puts the glass down so forcefully that it sounds like a _bang_ in the quiet room.

“Well,” North says, smiling, “onto Tooth now! Quick, quick, before she comes looking.”

He ushers Jack from the kitchen again and to the door on the right, the way they had come up from the cargo bay, taking the stairs back down to the gangway. Jack waits for him to walk through first and follows slowly, distracted by the exchange.

That wasn't what he had expected. Not even considering the fact that North used to be a  _raider_  – Jack just hadn't expected him to be so... honest. Beyond sense, even. His suspicion is unbalanced now, tipping too far one way and the other; was it meant to manipulate him? If it isn't, then why say it at all? He's starting to feel uncomfortable in a whole new way that has nothing to do with the possibility of danger here.

What the hell kind of people are these?

On the gangway, North goes to the same shuttle that he had paused in front of last time, and he waves Jack closer. Looking at it, there's nothing on the outside door that distinguishes it from any other shuttle; but through the window, Jack can see something colorful, and flashes of gold.

North knocks twice, and a voice on the other side calls back, “Come in!”

When the door slides open, the color turns out to be purple drapes hanging just past the door, decorated with intricate patterns in shining gold. North pushes Jack through them, towards the centre of the room, and Jack he notices two things. The first is that there is a _lot_ of gold in the shuttle. Every color seems to be paired with gold, on every fabric and every painted surface. It's... _dazzling_ is the word he'd use. And maybe ostentatious. He's never seen this much gold in his life.

The second is something blue-green, and then suddenly there are fingers clamped around his jaw, tender at the place that Bunnymund had punched him.

“Oh my god, sweetheart, what happened to you?” asks the young woman holding his face, her frown concerned. “Did these thugs do this? North, you kěwù de lǎo bàojūn—”

She's shorter than Jack and smaller, too, in a way that reminds him of the ballerina in Emma's jewellery box, the one she'd kept even after it broke. Neither of them had ever seen a real ballerina, Jack still hasn't – this one had been a tiny ceramic figurine with fairy wings, surprisingly detailed for something they found in a pawn shop, and he can see something of it in this woman.

But her grip is strong, and the sharpness in her voice when she turns her attention to North is enough to make Jack wince too.

North makes an indignant noise. “Me! I am doing nothing, it was Bunny!”

“Mm-hm. But I bet you dragged the poor boy to the ship, didn't you?”

“He is  _fine_ , Tooth,” North huffs, folding his arms. “Bunny did not even hit him very hard.”

The woman's dark eyes flick to Jack again and she tuts. Her fingertips are pressing gently at the aches along his jawline while she tells him, “I'll get you a cold compress from the medbay. I'm sure it's not so bad now, but if we don't take care of it, you're going to be _very_ sore tomorrow. Oh, I hope none of your teeth got knocked around...”

“Um, thanks?” Jack says. He hadn't meant for it to sound like a question, but his voice cracks high, and her hands are still on his face.

After another few seconds of scrutiny, North clears his throat, and the woman startles.

“Whoops!” she says, laughing clear with a musical lilt, like windchimes. “Sorry, I got a little ahead of myself; the boys' bad manners must be rubbing off on me.” She steps back and lets her hands fall away. “Now, I already know you're Jack, our thief, but I should introduce myself.”

One hand comes to rest against her collarbone, a flash of jewellery that stands out against her brown skin. She continues, an edge of formality slipping into her warmth, “I'm Toothiana, and I'm a registered Companion, so you won't see me getting involved with the crime very much.”

“That explains all the gold,” Jack says, and then his actual  _brain_ catches up with his mouth, and he stammers, “Wait, no, I mean— I just—”

Toothiana's smile is small and polite, but something about the curve of her eyes seems amused. “First time seeing a Companion?”

Jack nods, swallowing the rest of his words. The luxury of the gold in her room is fitting now, and he feels out of place, too aware of his tattered patchwork jacket and ratty fingerless gloves. A  _Companion_.

And now that she's said it, it's easy to see Toothiana as a Companion – even in the company of criminals, she's dressed for high society. The blue-green gradient of her skirt is bordered at the hem with shimmering gold; the kind of ostentatious decoration that has never graced anything Jack has ever worn. Her midriff is exposed by the cut of her blue silk blouse, and there's yet  _more_ gold embroidered on the length of sheer green fabric hanging across her shoulders.

He doesn't need to know a lot about fashion to guess that it's expensive, all of it. He doesn't think he could even afford the feathery ornaments in her dark hair, much less all the jewellery she wears.

“Do not be fooled, Jack,” North says, drawing Jack out of his awe. He leans in as if to share a secret, and he whispers loudly, “Tooth is also  _assassin_.”

Toothiana slaps North's arm with a scowl. “North! I've told you a thousand times, just because I can take care of myself in a fight doesn't make me an  _assassin_ , for heaven's sake. Every Companion goes through combat training, you  _know_ that. Don't lie to Jack just to scare him.”

He doesn't say anything, but Jack doubts he'd be any more scared of Toothiana for being an assassin than he is of the others as they are. North is clearly a complete madman, and Bunnymund is an ex-Independent soldier who's still carrying a military arsenal and devotion to the cause. At least he could trust that an assassin wouldn't attack him for no reason.

An assassin would also make more sense on a ship like this, because he can't imagine why a Companion would travel this far from the Core, with people of such low reputation.

“So, uh,” Jack starts, deciding to be blunt. North and Toothiana drop their bickering to turn their attention on him, and he asks, “How do you get clients all the way out here?”

Toothiana blinks a few times, like a startled bird, and quickly arranges her expression into something more pleasant.

“Well, I don't often get work this far out,” she explains, “but for the Border planets, I just let the Guild know when I'll be there, and they'll put it on the Companion network. I can confirm which client I'll be meeting before we land, and then just head over in my shuttle while you boys are working.”

 _Working_ , she says, like it's not a combination of smuggling, theft, and murder.

He can see the appeal of having the freedom to work on her own, but... It still doesn't match up with what he knows of Companions, what he's heard over the years. They're high society on the Core, where the rich can pay for their time to show off their own wealth and respectability; and it's always seemed like they would want to stay nearer the Companions Guild, where it has the most influence.

“Why would you want to get clients on the Border, though?” he asks, picking at a fraying thread on his gloves, self-conscious in front of her. He tries to imagine leaving a Core planet for _this_ , and he can't. “I mean... the Core is about as good as it gets, isn't it?”

Toothiana shakes her head. The warm light in her shuttle catches on a green mark between her eyebrows, and that glimmers too, like she has a round gem on her brow. It's an Indian tradition, he recalls, and he can't remember what it's called.

“People on the Border are usually more in need of a Companion's services. You probably think it's just about sex,” and when Jack goes to deny it on reflex, Toothiana gives him a look of gentle admonishment, amused, “... but there's a spiritual part of my interactions with clients.”

She's running a hand over her long braid, draped over her shoulder, and it would look like a nervous gesture on most people. She makes it seem thoughtful instead, almost graceful. “On the Core,” she says, “everyone thinks they have it all figured out. People living on the Border are a little more lost, and I try to help them find their way.”

It makes no more sense to him than it did a moment ago,  _less_ sense, if anything, because now he has her words to be confused by as well as her motives. But she says it so simply that he doesn't want to ask, like it would make him an idiot not to know. Jack looks to North for an explanation instead, and North only shrugs his shoulders – so it must be some strange Companion thing.

Toothiana watches their wordless exchange with that polite smile, plain and subdued. “North, are you finished giving Jack the tour?”

“Ah, not quite,” North says. He reaches over to clap his enormous hand on Jack's back, staggering him, and Jack catches himself on a bedpost. “We are going on our way to Sandy, and then I will take Jack to his room.”

“In the crew quarters?” When she gets a nod, she turns to Jack. “Then I'll go get that compress for you and I'll leave it in your room, alright?” she says to him. He nods, mute as she takes him by the arm and tugs him along.

They leave her shuttle without any real hurry, all three of them, and North herds Jack towards the stairs that lead back up to the kitchen while Toothiana takes the stairs down to the cargo bay floor, calling out behind her, “It was lovely to meet you, Jack!” as she goes.

He barely even hears her slippered feet on the metal grating.

 

* * *

 

It's a short walk to the bridge; up the stairs and right through the fore passage instead of turning left into the kitchen, and Jack drags his feet even so. He's exhausted and it's only early morning. The longer this all takes, the heavier he starts to feel, and maybe it's just sinking in slowly that he's going to _stay_ here. It's not like he's going to wake up tomorrow and it will all be over with.

He's done a lot of things over the years in his search for Emma, and this is... not the worst. The strangest, though, and maybe the dumbest.

There's no other choice. He just has to keep telling himself that. The obvious methods aren't  _working_ , haven't been for a long time now, so if that means he has to make a gamble and do something crazy, then he'll do it.

Upon walking through the open door to the bridge, Jack's first thought is that the pilot is missing, so it's no wonder they haven't taken off yet.

But North elbows him gently out of the doorway, marching up to the pilot's seat, and he says in the sternest voice that Jack has heard from him yet: "Sandy! Are you sleeping at the helm again?"

Jack almost groans. This feels like it might have been inevitable; the engine is a mess of jerry-rigging, and the crew an odd assortment of people who seem like they don't fit anywhere in the 'verse, much less as a band of criminals in the far reaches of space. Of course they have a pilot who regularly falls asleep at the wheel. He's made a terrible mistake.

“Yes, good morning,” North is saying to the pilot, still hidden by their chair, “but it is time to go now. As we said not so long ago, yes?  _Āiyā_ , how you manage to fall asleep so quickly...” And then—it's perfectly quiet in the cabin, and Jack is listening, but he doesn't hear a reply. There's only a few long seconds of silence, and North speaks again,  “Ah, of course, very good of you. Well, here he is!” before spinning the chair around to face Jack.

The man in the chair would probably reach no higher than Jack's hip standing, his blonde hair a mess and pudgy hands rubbing at his eyes as he yawns. As soon as he sees Jack through his squinting, his expression brightens, and his hands start moving in quick, complicated little gestures that— Oh.

Their pilot is mute.

“Don't you think,” says Jack, mildly, “that it kind of complicates things to have a pilot that can't talk? No offense,” he adds to the pilot as an afterthought, and the little man shakes his head with a smile to show no hard feelings.

North waves off his concern without pause. “No need for worrying! We have sorted all this out. Sandy is _very_ good pilot, you know,” he adds, as if that might convince Jack. The only real comfort Jack can come up with is the fact that they're all still alive so far.

He watches the pilot—Sandy—make signs, obviously long-practised by how fluid they are; Jack can't understand any of them, but despite the speed with which Sandy goes through each gesture, they're clear enough that he can tell them apart, and doubtless he'd be able to identify them if he knew sign language. But he doesn't, and so whatever Sandy is saying to him falls between them into silence.

“Uh, I don't— Captain?” Jack looks to North helplessly, “I don't know any sign language.”

The rest of the crew must speak it, because North doesn't seem to have expected that. He gives a surprised start and an, “Oh!” Sandy repeats his signs to North this time, and North translates for him, “Ah, he is saying that it is good to have you on board. And he is introducing himself – Jack, this is Sanderson. But Sandy, for short.”

“Hey,” Jack says and gives a short, awkward wave that Sandy returns cheerfully. The language barrier is making him feel out of place again, the same as Toothiana's refinement; he'll be glad to finally have a room to hide away in, after all of this. “Guess I don't need to introduce myself, huh? Since you all... y'know, came here looking for me.”

It feels like it's only good manners to keep his attention on Sandy while he's signing out whatever he has to say, even if Jack can't follow. There's something to be gleaned from his expression, if nothing else, and right now his eyes are alight with humour. As soon as Sandy's hands fall into his lap, Jack's eyes flick across to North, awaiting an explanation.

To his surprise, North laughs. “Of course, I had nearly forgotten!” He turns a grin on Jack and says, “Jack, Sandy would like to hear why you are doing jobs like on Ariel.”

For a moment he doesn't understand; North could tell the story just as easily without bothering to ask Jack, without this stilted back-and-forth between the three of them, there's no reason to pull him into it. But then it strikes him that, possibly, it's intended as a courtesy – or at least the illusion of it, to let him be involved in the conversation and be the one to explain his situation.

The thought warms him more than he'd like. He's been out alone too long, if _this_ is getting to him.

“My sister got kidnapped,” he says, swallowing past the way his throat closes up, “and someone thinks the Alliance might have a hand in it, so. I'm out here looking for her.”

It's odd to hear it summed up so quickly, even as he says it. It gets the point across, though, and Sandy gives him a soft, sympathetic smile for all of three seconds. Then he turns to North and holds out a hand, expectant.

“Yes, yes, fine,” North grumbles. He pulls a pouch from the pocket of his coat, and it clinks as he rummages around inside it. “You are very bad man, Sandy,” he says. “Jack, are you seeing this? Do not gamble with Sandy, he will bleed you dry.”

Jack is watching North fish coins out of the pouch, but he notices Sandy looking at him. When he meets his eye, Sandy points to Jack and then shakes his head with a smile, waving a hand: ‘You don't need to worry about it.’

“What was the bet?” he asks, morbidly curious if it involved him.

North drops several coins into Sandy's tiny hand, and huffs at Sandy's signed response: touching the fingers of his other hand to his lips, and tipping his hand outwards. “We were betting,” North says as he ties up his pouch, “on you, and on your reasons for the theft. Sandy had thought that it was to help someone, and so now he is demanding my money.”

“Because he  _won_ ,” Jack says, amused against his better sense. The gamble doesn't bother him at all, although: “What did the rest of you bet?”

“I was betting that you were being rebel; fighting against Alliance for everyone's good, yes?” North shakes a fist in some gesture of heroic triumph, and Jack very nearly laughs; he catches himself before it can move beyond his chest. He shouldn't be— These people aren't his friends. Yes, he's going to be with them  _indefinitely_ , but he doesn't have to trust them. He shouldn't like them.

Oblivious to Jack's conflict, North goes on, “Bunny said you were only petty crook wanting money, and Tooth...” He scratches at his beard, frowning. Sandy claps his hands together to get North's attention and signs something that must jog North's memory, because North snaps his fingers and says, “Yes! Thank you, Sandy – Tooth's bet was on trying to uncover a conspiracy.”

“Um.” Oh, no,  _h_ _e shouldn't like them._ “I hate to say it,” Jack says, gleefully and not hating it one bit, “but in that case, I'm pretty sure you owe Toothiana money too. Proving the Alliance took my sister is  _kind_ of a government conspiracy.”

North gives him such an indignant, betrayed look that Jack does laugh this time. He never has prided himself on self-control.

Before any bickering can start, a ringing sound distracts the both of them, and Jack sees that Sandy's chair is turned away again, the screens overhead lighting up. He wanders closer; slowly, until Sandy gestures for him to stand beside the chair, and then he lets himself watch without any pretence. Sandy is flipping switches and moving sliders without so much as glancing at them, obviously as much a second nature to him as sign language – Jack has never had the knack for piloting, and he's impressed.

Distantly, the ship's engine starts up, little more than a low whirring sound from here.

“Sandy waited for you before take-off, Jack,” North says on the other side of Sandy. His voice is soft, warm. “He thought you may want to see.”

The ship rises from the ground vertically at first, steady and level; part of the Firefly's design, Jack knows, wing-mounted thrusters that can turn downwards for vertical ascent. Out the window, the forest drops below them, treetops capped with snow from the night before, and then the ship starts to tip its nose upward and the forest falls away. Jack has never left the planet with a view of it before, always shut away below with other passengers, or in the cargo hold if he's talked his way onto a small ship. It's a beautiful sight, but something about it doesn't sit right with him, scraping in his chest like shards of glass against each other.

It isn't long until they break atmo – a view he could have done  _without_ , because regardless of his more recent time spent with ships he was born on the ground, he really didn't need to watch them hurtling towards the sky in a wreath of flames while the whole ship shudders, his nerves are worn thin enough already—and then, finally, there is nothing but the drift through space, the black void and pinpricks of stars.

And as he always does when he leaves Burgess, Jack feels tired; hollow and wrung out, a part of him left behind at home.

Jack tears his eyes away from the window and turns his back on it. He pauses long enough to tap the armrest of Sandy's chair and tell him, “Thanks,” and then he makes for the door, North murmuring something low and quick to Sandy before he follows.

“Jack!”

Reluctantly, Jack slows down, dragging his feet to a stop, and he turns to wait a moment for North. “No need to go far,” North says. He gestures to the hatches beside them, set into the wall on a slope. “Here are the crew quarters. And there is one spare for you, you see?”

North moves to the hatch on the right, closest to the kitchen, and he pushes it open to reveal a ladder down to the room. In a moment of incredible self-restraint, Jack doesn't jump down the hole and slam the hatch shut behind him; he stands there, listening to North carry on talking, and he strains for each word to register in his mind as it begins to preemptively shut down.

“I am suspecting Toothiana has already been there,” North is saying despite Jack's wavering attention, “so things should all be there for you.” He pats Jack on the shoulder, hard enough that it startles Jack back into awareness momentarily. “But if they are not, come find me, hm? There are not so many places to hide on _Guardian_.”

Jack nods. “Right,” he says, because North is still standing there. He grabs the topmost rung and gets his foot onto a lower one, and then hesitates. “I'll see you— soon, I guess.”

“Dinner at 1800,” North says cheerfully as Jack climbs down.

Jack manages not to slip on the rungs when he realizes that he's going to be eating with the whole crew in just twelve hours, and that it's going to be happening every day at the same time for the foreseeable future. It's _really_ taking a long time for this to sink in, he notes with some irritation.

The hatch takes a bit of a shove to close up behind him, but when it locks into place, Jack is finally left with something like peace. Just him – and he _has_ been alone too long if that's what it takes to comfort him. He can hear the hum of the ship's engine even from here and he's grateful for it; the total silence that comes with being out in the black has always felt unnatural to him, prickling at him with unease.

His room isn't anything much. It's bigger than he expected, though, and with it bare and unfurnished other than a bed against the wall, it actually looks  _too_ big. Hollow and miserable. At least there won't be any need to worry about it feeling like a home if he leaves it like this.

He finds the utilities set into panels on the wall, made to be shut away for more space, and he pries the top panel open to pull down a sink. After peeling off his gloves and splashing his face with water, he closes the sink away and starts to strip off the layers of clothing he'd worn for the Burgess morning air.

Down to an undershirt, breeches, and socks, Jack collapses on the bed and groans, long and low. North was right; Toothiana must have been in here, left behind a cold compress atop a pile of blankets, and Jack picks it up before shoving the blankets to the floor. He doesn't need to sleep. It's early morning, for god's sake, he just needs to... rest a moment. And the compress needs time to work on any swelling.

And—maybe he needs time to process what a fucking mess he's gotten himself into.

“Sorry, Emma,” he says aloud to the ceiling.

He closes his eyes, and he doesn't realize how tired he really is until he falls asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SURPRISE EVERYONE, I'M THE WORST. in my own defence: april & may were both bad months of a lot of REALLY REALLY long research essays so this took a long time, and plus it turned out like, twice as long as i expected & i hate introductory shit. i promise promise promise the next chapter is not as far away and you can harass me on [tumblr](http://tutorielmode.tumblr.com/) if i take too long or if you just want to talk to me about anything! :*
> 
> (also yes i did change the title because i'm fussy and indecisive)
> 
> anddd lastly, just to clarify humanisation things: 1) bunny is maori (i'm australian myself you don't have to tell me new zealand & australia aren't the same thing), 2) toothiana is indian, 3) sandy is a little person


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